The Right to work
ENToday work is one the main income sources of the population in Lithuania. According to the data of the research of monthly employment income of households (the account of social benefits has been relatively decreasing) it constitutes LTL 267 (67 % of total disposable income) per household. Following the provision recognized by the United Nations an hourly pay rate below USD 3 is not allowable, as it sets an employed person outside the boundaries of his life activity, behind which labour potential of the country starts to degrade, and motivation to work efficiently disappears. In Lithuania the average hourly pay was LTL 6.7 or 2.4 of the US dollar in 2003, i. e. even though it is approaching the set limit it is rather influenced by the fluctuations in the US dollar exchange rate than by the growth of the labour pay rate. In quarter I of 2005, the gross domestic product was LTL 4 289 per capita (at current prices) (LTL 4 175 at constant prices of 2000). That is more by 10.6 % versus the relevant period of the previous year. According to the data of the Labour Exchange at end-2004 there were 126.4 thousand of unemployed in Lithuania. Over the year, if compared with 2003, the number of unemployed decreased by 32.4 thousand. At the close of the year the registered unemployed to able-to-work population ratio was 6.0 %, last year it made up 7.7 %. Article 48 of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania establishes that every person may freely choose an occupation or business. Dr. Genovaitė Dambrauskienė, Professor of Labour Law, constructs the right to work not as the subjective right, but as the precondition: “the Constitution declares the right to work, but neither ensures the right to get a particular job by profession or activity area chosen nor guarantees the personal right to hold one or other office in a certain locality, undertaking, office, organization”.Thus the State’s duty to ensure the human right to choose a job means to create all conditions in order to qualify for doing preferred and possible work (to enter a profession, gain a qualification, re-qualify, acquire work experience, etc.) and create pre-conditions (guarantees) in seeking for employment and maintaining labour relations. However, the analysis of the situation in Lithuania suggests that after opening the borders of the European Union an increasing number of people emigrate in search for work overseas. Therefore, there is a task ahead for the State to implement such the (active) policy of employment and human resources development that every individual of this country, who is willing and able to work, would find a job worth of him in his homeland. In 1994 after renewed membership in the United Nations and their International Labour Organization, the tripartite principle of reconciliation of labour interests, which is typical of the International Labour Organization, and in seeking for the European Union membership – the principle of the social dialogue and the autonomy of social partners, has become relevant to the labour relations in Lithuania. The Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania (further on referred to as the Labour Code) in effect from 1 January 2003 establishes more modern principles of the regulation of labour relations, such as: freedom of association; state aid to persons in realizing the right to work; stability of legal labour relations; uniformity of labour laws and their differentiation on the basis of working conditions and psychophysical qualities of employees; freedom of collective bargaining for the purpose of reconciliation of the interests of employees, employers and the State, etc. Lithuania’s accession to the European Union has produced a material impact on labour legislation and practice.Adoption of the Labour Code and regulatory acts accompanying the same allows assuming that the Lithuanian labour laws are substantially harmonized with the EU legislation regulating labour relations, however, problems cannot be avoided in enacting individual legal acts. On 15 May 2001 the Seimas ratified and accepted the obligations under almost the whole European Social Charter (revised), which has strengthened the guarantees for the human right to work to a great extent as well as the right to appropriate working conditions, fair remuneration for work, and especially the right to be informed and to be consulted, to take part in the determination and improvement of the working conditions and working environment. The right to work in the present chapter of the report is understood and analyzed as the right to work on the basis of an employment contract, public service, membership in partnerships. Work under agreements on contractual works, copyright agreements and other agreements are not the subject matter of the present analysis. The purpose of this chapter of the report is to overview and assess what legal preconditions for work were created in the country in 2001–2004, what is the conception of labour in Lithuania, and how the right to work was realized, to provide proposals for improvement of the Lithuanian labour laws, their approximation with the international labour law standards, and to assess the outcome of the first year of Lithuania’s integration into the European Union [p. 123-124].
